tracing

reaching into static
to pull out floating bones
the holographic remnants
of naggingly present ghosts
whirring in my ear
- banshees somewhat off-tune -
humming notes as sharp as glass
to fleet away like fumes

and join the other countless
parallel, puddling tracks
(mais toujours en avant)
and never doubling back

these vagrant, dusty
meanderings
like foot prints in the sand
merely lapped-up,
wrapped-up
wanderings
along the shoreline that depends
on shifting waves
and drifting haze
and eroded
by a fogged-up lens lens

anachronism

If the tunes of unplayed music

grow yet stronger in the mind

as blossoms left to ripen 

sweeten gently with time;

and if touch indeed has memory

then I've loved you

under a thousand suns -

and awaiting your whisper

inflames my very blood.  

this whisper like a shadow

between the lines of words

hangs palpably in the air

suspiciously unheard

as the silence before a tempest 

of impatient sound:

the silken ribbon of a sigh

before it is unwound.

fragment

a broken heart

is not a shard

lodged ticking in the chest

like the shrapnel of a timebomb
or a lie confessed

to be righted
or explained
or summed up

it is mute and
gapingly limbless
and cannot  chase
the hours backward
for the story has been told

ignited
inflamed
and burnt up

and the fading, empty echos
brand a senseless moral
into a numbstruck brain
so ice the pain
and sit suspended in shock

a broken heart
cannot explode 

or disintegrate

or drift into precipitate

of rust or dust or scars

it is the silent corrosion

buried in an ocean as

vast as a blank  watchface

beyond this empty, windswept place

that beats in the pulsastion-

the faded reverberation-

of an extinct and ashen star. 

la muse perdue

Ils se sont battus,
jusqu'a perdre halaine,
jusqu'a perdre Helene
et la raison de leur dispute.

adrift

we are on a fishing boat,

bobbing like words

caught in Adam's apple,

trawling for ghosts 

gliding though a sea 

of mist and mercury 

with no motor, sail or paddle

as though this vessel floats

of its own deranged accord

between our charted island

-a long buried dream of gold -

and a long forgotten horizon

of the shoreline of our home.

women in the mirror

yes, we are amphibious
between earth and the creek
that plunges so deeply
past the roots we feed
with minerals spun
and the miracles won
from these seemingly webbed feet.

yes, we bow to stoop,
to remember our reflection
and dive away from this image
and words bound up in perception
of role and duty
and form and routine
to plunge away to the vacuous unseen
source of light that stems
from evident mystery

and yes, we will re-emerge
from this pinwheeling tidepool
of murky holy water
that pulls us into ourselves
away from ourselves
revealing all we require
so we might surface again
exhaling from our skin
the subtle primordial oxygen
of that purified invisible layer,
fragile and thin as misty silk
of engendering light
from the sleeping silt

underground

As bloodless as a pearl
ground into dust
salting the earth
with an invisible promise
that the gates were never locked-
and that all we sought
grew under these trampled feet
and that under those cataract clouds
immutably blind
to our thirst for rain
(perhaps in disdain of our shapeshifting guile,
of prostrations made
and wages gained
"entirely" in their name)
all the while
their refusal
only forces our hands -
more cracked and brittle
than the earth we till -
deeper into the dirt
we so vacantly,
vagrantly tread
pushing the seeds
sewn so long ago
away from the dusty,
windswept surface
deeper
and deeper still
until
we strike on hidden
jeweled petals
sprouting gems of dew
rusty and wrapped in velvet dirt
a thousand fold more nourishing
than their freely offered fruit.

strange

This is some strange paradise,
that I did not ask to enter,
and that I was not asked to leave,
but that I simply found
on the sole of my foot
engraved like a tattoo
that I dreamt up and forgot of
like the ethers of some lilac evening
from some time long ago.

freestanding still

where are the hands

reaching from the woodwork

to pull me against the walls

and keep me from scattering

out the windows

like floating shards

of fractured light?

for plaster is not firm

enough

to grip me

to bind me

to hold me

without nails.

corrosion

cursing the wind and the line between

control and chaos

while perched to see

beyond the giants

for those who hesitate

are lost and reliant

on illusion;

the delusions

bred from swampwater

in a marsh shaded from summerheat

where brush, branches

and nests retreat

into the burst of light

in the midst of death

where surrender to potential

is all that is left.

second waltz

On the nights that ring out in crystaline silence,

crisp and biting as january darkness

and clear and brittle as frosted starlight,

we waltz like the ruffled lace of snowflakes,

sweeping our trains

and swirling in vain

as though this twilight atmosphere

were a ballroom striking midnight,

where streetlamps pour the gold

of rusting chandeliers

to light these quivering moments

which, like champagne flutes in the hands of shock,

are flung into fears

as deep as the graves of innocent debutantes:

fallen from heaven before they arrive,

and I walk through your snowdrifts,

through the shards of broken glass

with one slipper

and one numbed, deadened,

bleeding foot.

solea

the most potent licor

is that distilled

in the inkwells

of my own fingerprints;

penning a warning

of that most dangerous consumption

which corrodes my lungs

and poisons my songs

and leeches into everyday words;

greying the sounds

already withering in the ears

of those I trusted loved
that singly impermutable silence;

that spot which laid untouchably within

a deep, cristalline cavity of stillness

where restitution was unrequired

and deemed unthinkable

(and seemed unbreakable) -

justified in quiet unspoken peace.

and yet, oh how my toxic agony leaked;

dripping from coagulated fires

into the pit of my stomach

searing the root of my voicebox

and preaching deafness to overcome

those to whom that airy stillness called.

where you were

I will not hear you whisper

against the stillness

of suspended midnight snow flakes

or scream at the wind,

chasing it off a cliff

or hear you slam cupboard doors

too early in the morning.

I will not wait for you to come home,

or keep a porchlight on for you.

We will not pick strawberries in August

or learn to dig a proper garden

or burn things in the oven

or forget both our sets of keys.

My children won't hold your hand;

you will never blow up their balloons

or see them blow out their candles.

We will not drink tea on autumn afternoons

where the centre of our universe would have spun

around a vase on the kitchen table.

We will not watch the sea where waves like

cataracts would have patched the present

and swept us back against time to

where you really were.

jackbreath

a stolen painting

your eyes cannot follow me

fixedly

down the hall

there is nothing left

but fingerprints?

(no, none at all)

just impressions spent

like frosted glaze

on window panes

to melt away like breath.

pinwheel

caught in the eddy between heaven and earth

between subjectivity and undisputed worth

between two worlds, one dead

and another's stillbirth

where answers fly like pigeons

into the deceit of the sun

blazing above the vista

where mercury rivers run

curing those who stoop to drink

so they might sink

away beyond the clouds.

writing in the walls

voices from inside the walls

cracking though the plaster

hidden like contraband

against the light of day

pouring liquid sound

through the pipes all around us

and, though the writings surround us,

they will only find the words

mixed into the dust of our debris.

nid d'hiver

les restes d'un nid ne sont plus que des branches nues

abandonnes

decapees par un hiver sans printemps d'une heure des <<plus tards>> .

je vit a l'abri des tons gris et des illusions plus tristes

encore que l'espoir.

ou est-il alle, le parfum d'ete, de l'enfance?

ou l'odeur de lilas s'est melange avec nos pas

dans le bitume moelleux de la rue?

sans toi, ma soeur

l'amour n'a plus de sens:

comme une vielle cruche

mon coeur en argile est aussi

sec et fissure.

Je ne suis plus que le ciment

que s'en va peu a peu en poussiere

avec l'odeur veloute de lilas

que tu m'as vole.

little girl and her dog

I hated your dog

and how much you loved it

like an old jointless woman

or a helpless little girl

more desperate for blind loyalty

than blind miracles.

I hated the biting pity

of that simple joy

that meant so much

too much

for someone so young;

someone more delicate

than glassy bones

or a tiny stray.

paintchips

crinkling petals from yesterday's gestures

infuse vague notions of time

sprinkling impressions almost forgotten

into notions already designed

to tint the walls with echoes

and stain the hues of consent

into a dreamland of muted sound

and the distortion of all pigment.

Bleaching and dying

and patching our scrapes

with the meanings we merely regurgitate

from our our constricted bowels;

the unspoken vowels

not pronounced as succinctly as implied

between the clipped phrases

and interminable spaces

of the lines

of the stories

of our lives.

What is this waking daze we're in

but undigested experience

inflaming the aperture of our eyes?

a glass

drinking in your words

like liquid light suspended

in drops of wine

a golden tincture of time

spent between old friends

seeping like resin into the cracks

to sand the wear of a long day.

phlegm

our lives are coloured by undigested experience -

and insanity;

the phlegm of an obstructed heart.

ash

I painted your urn,
dug your grave,
and buried your ashes

under a purple light.
These sound like a lines of verse
but they aren't.

meu mendigo

quero secar as folhas
que colhi numa noite fria
e trasnforma-las numa cha
para que remedie
os calofrios que me deixou
um crepusculo sem sol
e com os ares tao claros
que desapareceu a lua

preciso esquentar
o meu sangue espantado
para ver de frente
um fantasma descarado
que me cantava de costas
versos de um falso sossego
e abria-me as minhas maos
para dar em pedacinhos

os miolos da minha alma
em miseras esmolas

laranja

quando penso em voces,
penso nas flores laranjadas
que antes conheci
numa vida passada
a beira de um rio
regado de lagrimas alegres
que brotaram dos seus olhos
que vao correndo sempre
a me arrastrar bem longe
de cualquer canto
a qualquer momento
ao olor de um verao
meio sonhado

fall

coughing tears

and crying bile

the poles invert;

turning leaves while

April's empty winds

carry a phantom hue

of last spring's seedlings

and frozen dew.

dans le noir

Je veux couper

ton souffle en deux

et respirer la moitié;

de vider

et remplir tes poumons.

Je veux gouter ta salive

et parler dans ta langue

et dire toutes les choses

que je n'aurais jamais ose

dire par jour.

Je veux entrelacer tes

doigts dans mon étreint

et entendre les paroles

du battement de tes paupières

dans le noir.

how

How would we live
if each breath we took was
numbered
and every hesitation
sent us flying asunder

in the vague realization

of a mind's half invention

of jewels merely plundered?

Deeply, softly, fully
slowly
inhaling only
to raise our hearts
in trepidation
of the next failing instant.

How would I touch you
if your skin was
dust and ash
eroded by the wind
as these marauding breezes pass
through you
and through my desperate grasp?

Deeply, softly, fully
slowly
lifting my hands only
if I have calmed the
waters rushing
just below your
swirling surface:

in reverence
of your fleeting spectre
of miraculous
light and
sound and
colour

and

How would you listen
if you knew I float alone,
bobbing on the waves
you hear pounding

against your bones?

debt

beyond our subtle fixation
on our own impending death
that clouds our better judgement
into a desperate,
fumbling attempt
to seal in our fate
some inoxydizeable worth,

our ashes pay our transport
past the ethers spent
and blindly coagulated
on our half-failed birth

traces

gailing winds rippled in a tempest of bile

of bubbling fury and chemical guile

that stole the diamonds from your eyes.

while the winds died;

your blood christalized,

your stillness stabilized,

and floating ghosts materialized

rising from the depths like jetsome

and washing up like

still-smoking-shrapnel

while the rest of you sunk into a current

that I could not follow

though I held your hand as it fell cold.

visceral red

When you spun silk

it tum(bled) out of you

in crimson threads

weaving a web

that pooled at our feet

and caught us by surprise.

siren

A manilla galleon

floating on foreign waves

away from your dreams

and into my incredulous hands

catches fire on the seas of burning,

swirling darkness

beneath the glassy surface

of barely audible light

a shipwreck rings out

like tinnitus in your ears;

cup them to my chest

and you will heard your own cries,

your lost sailor's sighs

wash up on beaches of unpromised gold.

nuestra humanidad

es una tarde de lástima

y del polvo dorado

en las calles desiertas

de los orgullos descalzos

donde reina la paz

de los resignados

que viven por el costumbre

de seguir casi-vivos

en el amargo encanto

del casi-olivdo.

landslide

The earth has finally settled.

I sift myself out of the rubble

and into a changed world.

The terrible silence

pulses louder than my heart

and almost stronger than my courage

to live without your voice.

The searing gases of this new atmosphere

are suffocating -

as caustic as the memory of

cinnamon, baby powder

and fresh warm bread

that began to disapate

the moment you fled.

This hopeless landscape of chasms

-that I dread I am doomed to fill

with burning, poisoned tears,

this sickening, alien vista

(where the streets will be renamed)

brings me to my knees

on the ashes you left behind.

a step outside

Take me to the sidewalk

to platinum, rainwashed cement,

where it is just you and I

in the calm of dawn.

Lead me by the hand,

conspicuous to the robins,

to the morning rush of air

that purifies our skin.

Pull me outside and away from

the articles of identity

to the cold and empty pavement

where all you have in this world

is your coat and my arm.

Simply, 

quietly, 

take me.

Please.

le puits caché

Je cherche de l'éspace dans le vide;

des besoins et les désirs

de mon beige penombre

où se rejoignent mes malheurs

- mes bêtes génées et sombres -

lesquelles je jette comme des fleurs

au fond d'un coeur muet

remplit de décombres

et presque gâché.

Là, où il n'est rien que toute

l'immensité

d'une mer de merde

et de la lumiere distillée.

Soon

sometime soon

I want to send reverberations through every cell in your body.

I want to feel your chest pulsate under your skin.

I want to see your skin flush

and smell you under your open pores.

I want to taste the salts of your lips

and sweep you away in a wave of sweat and scent

and crash into your internal sea of of plasma

and wash up on your midnight desert of bone.

I want you to torch my nerves.

I want your fingertips to smooth my tremulous breath.

I want your desperate hands to trace my veins

to their origin in my breast.

I want your blazing gaze to braise the glaze from my eyes;

to blind me except to your thirst,

to expose me to your catalysts,

to blow away the dust in my joints.

until we fall away like ashen snow.